The honesty of a child
As a child with smooth skin and able body, I recall one day seeing a slightly stooped man with graying hair and facial wrinkles using a walking cane. I thought to myself, “That poor man is really old.”
Today, as a full-fledged member of the human “Inevitable Cycle of Life” organization, I have officially merged into the final season.
This was confirmed after several years of denial during a shopping jaunt the other day when I overheard a little girl walking behind me tell her mother that what they were searching for was located “just ahead of that old man in front of us.”
Her mother hushed her, obviously concerned I’d overheard the comment.
The honesty of a child doesn’t come any purer. I stepped to one side and took a minute to digest the truth of her revelation. I’ve indeed become an old man, as much as I find that hard to accept.
My changes in the mirror have come gradually, helping me see only what I wanted and accepted—the same me.
Since age is only a number, I discounted 77 as just that and not the noticeable effects of those years on my body. In my mind I was still feeling and looking more like 35 and holding.
It took the honest words and eyes of a child to make me face reality.
It’s doubtful I’m alone in facing the signs of my mortality. None of us derives pleasure or satisfaction from seemingly overnight becoming that old man or woman we once passed in the store.
The bout with cancer over the past two years and the toll that most certainly has taken on my psyche and body should have been enough to already make me understand this.
Yet I’d preferred to continue remembering what 93-year-old actor Clint Eastwood reportedly once divulged to Toby Keith on the golf course about his secret to his energy and still relatively youthful appearance into his 90s. “I get up every day and don’t let the old man in,” he said.
A simple and wise approach to helping hold each of our winters of life at bay, if you can convince your mind to pull it off. And if you don’t have the reality check of an honest child reminding you the old man has already found his way in and you are now the old man. It’s always interesting to me when a reader casts their uninformed aspersions on a stranger with whom they disagree.
Over 22 years of writing his column I’ve come to expect that kind of treatment, especially from some driven by political ideology. Most columnists understand it goes with the job.
I never expect not to be criticized for whatever I write. I would only ask the writer try their best to base his or her comments on my work on facts.
A letter to the editor was recently published on this page following my column that listed a host of reasons why I believe so many Americans are angry, hostile and rude across our troubled society.
Most of the documented reasons I believe are behind such widespread pervasive anger also had been reported for weeks by various national news media. They are obvious to all of us.
The letter-writer, Jim Weaver of Eureka Springs, apparently believes only Fox News had carried stories about my variety of topics that included widespread concerns over troublesome inflation, the open border, crime in the streets, failed foreign policies, congressional investigations into D.C. corruption, the handling of cases against former President Donald Trump, etc.
The truth is I regularly follow reporting in newspapers and several news channels including Fox, Newsmax, ABC, NBC, CBS and sometimes CNN. My objective is always to acquire the widest amount of factual and newsworthy information available on a subject.
In the process, I’ve noticed some news reports definitely are better than others in the number of relevant stories and the depth in objective facts and context each chooses to cover—or intentionally omit. After a while of comparing it becomes apparent which is providing the fullest facts.
So I’m still scratching my head, wondering how Mr. Weaver assumes I “gave up on journalism and just [echo] Fox News.” That can only be interpreted in a way that tries to associate me with a news channel he must detest for whatever reason.
But hold on a minute. Hmmm. How could Weaver possibly know which stories Fox had been reporting for me to echo unless he was regularly watching Fox News?
Anyway, thanks, Jim, for reading.
SPREADING THE JOY
There was a sharp knock after dark the other night. Jeanetta tentatively cracked the front door and I could hear all kinds of laughter and commotion from back in the office where I’d spent hours categorizing and compiling hundreds of Fox News reports to echo the next day (sorry, couldn’t resist).
Stepping around the corner, I caught a glimpse of our next-door neighbors clad in Christmas attire. I stepped outside with Jeanetta and Benji as Terry Baumann, his wife Kim and their four children began caroling us with an energetic “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”
Being my birthday, they followed up with an elegant “Happy Birthday to Mike” and even handed us a gift.
I don’t know about you, valued readers, but in all my years I’ve never had next-door neighbors who gather their children for caroling in the neighborhood because they enjoy it and say it’s “the right thing to do.”
Think the Baumanns are raising their children with proper values?
Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you. Caroling and seasonal garb is optional.